


My Lagan Love

by RevenantAvenger90



Series: Rebels and Heroes: Marvel Shorts [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers team - Freeform, Coping, Dreams, F/M, Feels, Gen, Howlies - Freeform, Howling Commandos - Freeform, Hugs, Memories, My Lagan Love, Old Irish songs, Short, Singing, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers grew up poor and Irish, Steve Rogers has a singing voice, Steve copes with Peggy's death, Steve copes with his mother's death, Team as Family, Tearjerker, civil war spoilers, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 09:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15239973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RevenantAvenger90/pseuds/RevenantAvenger90
Summary: “We’ve made some very public mistakes,” Natasha finally says. “We need to win their trust back.”Tony starts to say something about how he needs that in writing, but Steve does not hear the jibes that Tony and Natasha start throwing at each other. Steve’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He frowns and fishes it out. Who would be texting him at this moment, when all of his friends who normally text him are in the same-?She’s gone. In her sleep.Steve’s world goes quiet and dark. He barely registers his lips murmuring that he has to go, and then he’s on his feet and moving, not even seeing where he’s going. All he knows is that he has to get away,get away,before the hole rips open wide-She’s gone.





	My Lagan Love

**_My Lagan Love._ **

The Accords, as a printed book, are a full inch-and-a-half-thick ream of vague statements and convoluted legal jargon created for the sole purpose of concealing the U.N.'s true intent behind a veil of "doing the right thing". Steve gets halfway through it before he realizes that he’s read the same paragraph four times and that the arguing around him has just gotten more intense. They’re arguing themselves in circles, and they can’t seem to see his point when he adds in his own two cents. They can’t seem to see that the Accords are, in short, doing the same thing the Nazis did. _Plausible deniability._ The Nazis compartmentalized their soldiers so that one never questioned what was happening outside his little bubble of existence. Train station attendants stamped tickets without ever considering that those tickets led to death camps.

 _“They ordered us to do it,”_ some of them said, after the fact. _“It wasn’t our fault. We didn’t know we were killing innocents.”_

 _Ignorance doesn’t excuse murder._ Steve shakes his head and listens to them arguing. _It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of blame-shifting. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it._

“We’ve made some very public mistakes,” Natasha finally says. “We need to win their trust back.”

Tony starts to say something about how he needs that in writing, but Steve does not hear the jibes that Tony and Natasha start throwing at each other. Steve’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He frowns and fishes it out. Who would be texting him at this moment, when all of his friends who normally text him are in the same-?

_She’s gone. In her sleep._

Steve’s world goes quiet and dark. He barely registers his lips murmuring that he has to go, and then he’s on his feet and moving, not even seeing where he’s going. All he knows is that he has to get away, _get away,_ before the hole rips open wide-

_She’s gone._

He staggers and trips down the final step and only prevents himself from tumbling headfirst into the wall because he grabs onto the handrail with a resounding smack of flesh against metal, and suddenly his breath is hitching. He props himself against the handrail and pinches the bridge of his nose in an effort to hold it back, but the tears escape nonetheless.

_She’s gone. In her sleep._

“Peggy,” he gasps, and his knees give out.

It’s a sharp ache, and Steve can’t stop it, because she’s gone. He buries his head in his arms, and he’s gasping and choking on the sobs that are boiling up in his chest. They wring themselves from his throat in a low keen that he’s not sure he’s ever made before in his life, but he can’t stop it because _she’s gone_.

_Peggy._

Her face flashes before his eyes, smiling and serene in the sunshine on the parade ground at Camp Lehigh. He sees a black-and-white of her sitting with her children, smiling, all of them dark-haired with that subtle Carter grin and wearing those ridiculous ‘50s fashions. He remembers thin, white hair where it should have been thick and brown, remembers cataracts fogging those brown eyes, remembers- “Steve? You- you came back!”- but for all of her forgetfulness and fragility near the end, she had still been…

_Peggy._

He sucks in a deep breath and tries to master himself.

_You knew this was coming._

His attempt fails, and the hole rips open even wider.

_It doesn’t matter. She’s still gone._

He hasn’t hurt this much since Bucky died- but, _oh, that’s right, Bucky isn’t dead_ \- and he doesn’t think he’s hurt this much since his mom passed, either. It never gets any easier, losing someone close to you. Knowing doesn’t make it hurt any less. Preparation never eases the pain. He’s never been sure which is worse: watching a person slip away slowly and having that pain grow, knowing you can’t do anything to save her, or having her leave so abruptly that the shock numbs the loss for a little while before it overwhelms you. He still isn’t sure which is worse.

“Cap?”

Steve goes stock-still. For a second, he’s so lost in his misery- in his memories- that he doesn’t recognize the voice. He lifts his head a little bit, scrubs his hand over his face, and then turns his gaze up to the top of the stairs.

Tony is staring at Steve with his mouth hanging open, and Tony looks like he’s seen a ghost. Steve could care less. He drifts listlessly past Tony’s astonished expression, and his gaze alights on the rest of the team. They’re filing over to the railing, turning their eyes on him, and Steve…

He gulps back the tears, pushes himself to his feet, and flees the room as quickly as he possibly can without running into anything on his way.

Steve finds himself in the gym. Normally, when he’s this upset about something, he pounds on the heavy bag until the world feels right again. This time, he just doesn’t have the energy for it. He drifts back into the locker room and turns on one of the shower taps, letting the water run. It’s sinful, how wasteful it is, but he doesn’t care right now. The sound of the running water is soothing, and Steve is shaking so much that he can barely stand upright.

He strips down- toes off his shoes and kicks them away, and tosses his clothes haphazardly over one of the benches- and steps into the shower, ducking his face beneath the hot stream.

_Peggy was watching him from her side of the bathtub. They were enjoying a rare liberty in London after a grueling mission taking out a HYDRA base in rural Belgium, and if their superior officers knew that they were sharing a hotel room, they would have them reassigned faster that Steve could say “Who’s strong and brave?”._

_She extended her foot towards him with a sloshing of water. Steve caught it against his chest and shifted just a bit before he paused and ran his fingertips over the arch of her foot, her toes, her delicate ankle. Peggy had beautiful feet, and the artist in him ached to draw her just like this, from the chocolate hair falling out of its bun and curling in the humidity of the bath, to the slope of her neck where it met her shoulders, the graceful sweep of her collarbones, the curve of her naked breasts where they vanished beneath the water. He was a little uncomfortable, folded into the bathtub with her when the tub was clearly made for only one person, but it was worth it just to see her like this._

_“Have you thought about what you’ll do?” she asked, and gave a soft groan of appreciation when Steve began kneading the ball of her foot between his fingers._

_“What I’ll do?” He glanced up at her. “You mean, after the war?”_

_“Mm-hmm.” She sighed and slipped down a little farther into the water. Her toes teased their way between his thighs, and Steve’s breath caught as she brushed her toenails over the soft skin, there. “Captain America must have some plans of his own.”_

_Steve seriously pondered it._

_“In all honesty,” he admitted, staring at the foot in his hand as though it held the answers he sought. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I mean, I suppose I could go back to school, or find a job. Maybe I’ll stay with the Army, or the SSR.” He shrugged. “The world’s never going to be a safe place, Peg. We’ll always need someone who can stand up for the little guy.”_

_“What about a wife? Family?”_

_“Not sure I can have a family, after the Serum.” He was quiet a moment, studying her, and then he glanced up into her eyes. Not for the first time, he thought he could get lost in those sable depths. “But a wife… definitely. And if we can’t have kids, I’d love to adopt.” He grinned suddenly. “Heck, maybe we’d adopt even if we do have kids of our own. God knows there’re enough orphans out there that we wouldn’t have any trouble finding a couple to take in.”_

_Peggy was smiling, that soft, unreserved smile that Steve only ever saw directed at him._

_“I like your dream.”_

Steve realizes he is crying again, and he would stop, but the memory washes him in misery like nothing else has, yet. The pain is so great it’s like getting punched in the gut over and over with Bucky’s metal arm- _that hurt like a bitch_ \- and there’s no outlet. He roars just to get it out- and smashes his clenched fist into the porcelain tile, over and over, until he cuts his knuckles straight through to the bone and breaks every bone in his hand and wrist- _phalanges, metacarpals, carpals, radius, ulna_ \- just because a _broken hand_ hurts less than _“She’s gone”_.

He’s calm again when Sam and Tony find him. No. Calm isn’t the right word.

_Empty. Wrung-out. Hollow. Listless. Catatonic._

Steve just wants to get drunk and forget it all for a while. He doesn’t care that his friends are seeing him naked and bleeding and broken on the shower floor. He just wants to stop hurting, because the hurt hasn’t stopped since 1944, and 73 years is a _long fucking time_ to feel like you’re walking wounded.

Tony kneels beside Steve, heedless of the water that drenches his expensive three-piece suit, and pulls Steve into his arms in a way that Steve hasn’t experienced since the last time his mother held him, before her death.

_Sarah’s skin was bloodless and pale, her lips flecked bright red and the skin bruised beneath her sunken eyes. She coughed blood every two minutes. Even now, her breathing was a raspy wheeze that would have sounded more at home in Steve’s chest than in his mother’s. Sarah had always been so strong. Even now, she was reclining upon all the pillows in the house, and Steve knew she was dying, but she almost seemed like she was doing better than she had been, recently._

_“Ye’ll bury me in th’ church cemetery when I’m gone, won’t ye?” she asked, her voice a faint rasp. She still carried that Irish lilt that had always been such a source of comfort for her son when he was growing up. “Nex’ t’yer grandfather?”_

_Steve swallowed, and then forced numb lips into motion. “Of course, Máthair.”_

_“And there’ll be tree white roses for ye ta lay on th’ headstone.” She patted his hand. “I’ve got it all arranged, my love.” She paused. Then she reached up and touched his cheek. Steve met her gaze, but Sarah saw through him in an instant. “Ye’ll be just fine, my Lagan love.”_

_Steve’s breath hitched. Sarah reached out and tugged him to her. Even though Steve had always been the physically weaker of the two of them, Sarah was now so depleted that she could not pull him to her on her own. Steve went to her nonetheless. She wrapped him in her arms and pressed her bloody lips to his temple, and Steve closed his eyes and listened to her heartbeat fluttering in the base of her throat._

_“Will ye sing for me?” she asked softly. Steve swallowed and sighed and rested against her chest for a moment. Then he pulled back and shifted back to his chair, and took her hand between his palms._

_He opened his mouth and sang for her._

_Two weeks later, he sang the same song over her coffin as they lowered her into her grave, and Bucky’s blue-grey eyes were damp and tense where they followed Steve. Bucky’s mouth was tense with worry, but Steve hardly saw any of it._

_“Where Lagan stream sing lullaby, There blows a lily fair. The twilight gleam is in her eyes, The night is on her hair…”_

He’s singing now, too, even though he didn’t realize he had even opened his mouth.

“Where Lagan stream sing lullaby, There blows a lily fair.” His breath hitches. Tony runs his fingers through Steve’s sodden hair, and Steve buries his face in Tony’s shoulder. “The twilight gleam is in her eyes, The night is on her hair… And like a lovesick lenanshee, She hath my heart in thrall. No life I own, no liberty, For love is lord of all…”

He trails off, unable to sing any more, and he coughs as he lets the tears join the hot water cascading over them.

“Which song is that?” Sam has joined them, now, and his hand is warm on the bare skin between Steve’s shoulder blades.

Steve can’t answer for a moment. He has to swallow the lump in his throat.

“It… It was my mother’s favorite song.” He curls his fingers into Tony’s suit, and if the other man minds that he’s getting wet and snotty, he doesn’t show it. “And… And Peggy-” His voice breaks. He clears his throat, powers on. “Peggy liked it when I- when I sang it for her, when we- when we were…”

_Brown eyes danced at him in the dim light of their candle, and she traced Steve’s chest with her fingertips. Her breasts were warm against his skin._

_“Will you sing it for me?” she asked. “I’d like to hear your voice.”_

_Steve smiled, rolled on top of her, and obliged her as he kissed his way down her neck, her collarbones, and further down her torso._

_“My Lagan love, my Lagan love… And sometimes when the beetle’s horn Hath lulled the eve to sleep, I steal unto her shieling low And through the dooreen peep…”_

Steve can’t say it. It’s too private, too intimate, and the hurt is still too close, too new.

Tony finally speaks. “You dropped your phone.”

Steve shudders and does not reply.

Tony strokes his hair. Sam rubs his back.

“I’m sorry,” Tony whispers.

Steve gulps and buries his face in his friend’s shoulder. He shakes, but does not make a sound.

_Peggy loved having Steve sing that song. So did the Howlies, for that matter. Bucky would sit beside Peggy at their table in the bar, and when Steve sang Lagan Love- or any of the songs that their mothers had brought over from the Old Country- that hard, brittle edge that Bucky had adopted would soften a bit, and for just a few minutes, he would be that boy that Steve had known in Brooklyn before the war. Peggy would pour both her and Bucky a drink, and they would sip on their whiskey until it took that edge off. Then Bucky would ask Steve to sing, and the pain would bleed away until he was relaxed, like he so seldom was, after the Lab._

_“There on the cricket’s singing stone, She stirs the bogwood fire And hums in soft sweet undertones The song of heart’s desire…”_

Exhausted, Steve closes his eyes and lets himself slip away into his daydreams, just for a little bit, and in his daydreams, everything is white and perfect and peaceful. He sees Peggy and Bucky standing arm-in-arm, watches the Howlies roughhousing and jeering and cajoling each other as every one of them grins at Steve, welcoming him back to them with open hearts and open arms.

His imagination takes over. He watches his new friends- the Avengers, his new family- cluster around them, and all of them are happy and smiling and singing. His mother is standing beside Thor. The height difference is comical. She turns her warm smile on her son, and her lips form the words he heard so often in life.

_“Will ye sing fer me, my Stevie?”_

_“Of course, Máthair,”_ he replies, and sings softly for her, for them all.

_“There on the cricket’s singing stone, She stirs the bogwood fire And hums in soft sweet undertones The song of heart’s desire…”_

In his mind, Steve goes to Peggy and kisses her with all the tenderness in his heart.

 _“The song of heart’s desire…”_ He leans back and strokes her cheek.

Her sable eyes are smiling up at him. _“Well, my love, I think this is goodbye, at least for now.”_

Steve’s throat is tight, but he manages a nod.

 _"Goodbye, my love."_ She kisses him softly, and then she's gone.

 _“Goodbye, Peggy.”_ Steve’s drifting into blackness, and Tony and Sam are the warmth and life that he needs to stay anchored in the whirlwind of grief. _“I’ll see you soon.”_

Sleep finally overtakes him, and he escapes into dreams of dancing and a red dress.

**Author's Note:**

> **  
>  **   
>  __  
>  Irish Translations:   
>    
>    
>  _**Máthair:** (Informal) Mother, Mom, Mommy._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> This has been a faint idea in the back of my mind since I first saw Civil War when it came out in theaters. I just wasn't able to articulate it until now.
> 
> I have a lot of headcanons revolving Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, and Peggy Carter. One of them is that Steve and Bucky grew up poor and Irish, and that their parents (or Steve's, at least) were first-generation immigrants from Ireland. They would have been familiar with the old airs and ballads and other songs.
> 
> When I first saw this scene in the movie, my initial question was, "How did the rest of the team _not_ notice Steve breaking in the stairwell?" And then I realized that they probably did notice, but that the film just didn't show it, for whatever reason. This is my little hurt-comfort of Steve coping with the loss of the only other person left who was dear to him from his own time (at least at the moment, as he hasn't found Bucky again, yet).
> 
> I realize that Steve, Tony, and Sam might be a little out of character, here. I figured that Tony and Sam might be the only ones on the team who Steve would let close to him when he is grieving this hard, though.


End file.
